


The Nontraditional Policy

by spoilers



Category: Long Live the Queen (Video Game)
Genre: Elodie/Briony if you squint, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:29:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilers/pseuds/spoilers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her father once told her that the established policy on dealing with beasts from the Old Forest was to do nothing but hope that they returned there.</p><p>Elodie never considered herself a traditional Queen anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nontraditional Policy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quantumvelvet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumvelvet/gifts).



If there was one thing that Elodie really appreciated about Briony, it was that Briony seemed to exist in a world untouched-- or, at the very least, unbothered-- by noble intrigue. While Elodie's every action was scrutinized for signs of who was in her favor, and what ulterior motives she may have, and what it may mean for any particular noble's control over their own territory, Briony may well have been immune to all of it. Briony never saw herself as a representative of Ursul or Mead, even if the others did. Briony didn't think of her plans for the Old Forest in terms of resources to be gained or lost, or as a calculated move to expand the usable land in her father's Duchy, or as a means of testing which nobles would answer her more outlandish whims.

Sometimes, it felt like Briony was the only one who believed that she just wanted to save her people from the monsters inside her borders.

"And the treasure in the Old Palace," Briony insisted, flipping through an illustrated book on dragon sightings. "We're mostly after the treasure."

Her hair was let down, cascading across her back, the curls catching the light of the rising sun outside Elodie's window. They laid on their stomachs at the end of the bed, in arm's reach of the piles of books stacked on the trunk at her foot board, left there for last-minute research. Briony kicked her legs back and forth in the air as she read, and she kept knocking pillows onto the floor.

"Hey, careful, that one was a gift from the Duchess of Lillah," Elodie said, sitting up to watch it fall horse-side down on the stone.

"You didn't like it anyway."

"That's not the point!" Elodie shoved the report on their real target-- a monstrous bird that was admittedly slightly smaller and less heroic than the dragon staring up from the book-- in front of Briony's eyes. "Let's focus on clearing the path to the treasure for today."

The last time they took this trip, it was in the early hours of the morning, with the two of them sneaking off on their horses before anyone at the castle noticed they were gone. Thinking back on it, Elodie realized just how close they had come to losing their lives as the result of a spur-of-the-moment decision in the midst of the pressure surrounding her coronation. She saw it in her mind, once: her father waking up to find her gone, with no hint as to what happened to her besides a few empty stalls in the stables. Sometimes, she felt guilty at all the trouble she had caused, and the trouble she had barely avoided, when they were young, and looking to avoid royal responsibilities for a few hours, and ignoring the dangers involved.

But, as Briony always pointed out, they _didn't_ die in the Old Forest. In fact-- as she had said just last night, when they were going over the maps again-- in fact, that meant they were probably the most qualified people in the kingdom to rout out the monsters. They would save lives. Their names would go down in history.

Her father once told her that the established policy on dealing with beasts from the Old Forest was to do nothing but hope that they returned there.

Elodie never considered herself a traditional Queen anyway.

This time, they rode through the wetlands of Caloris in broad daylight, and armed with knowledge and experience both. Elodie and Briony devoured everything they could find in the castle about the fall of the Old Palace, and once they'd gotten through all of it they expanded out to what the other nobles could provide for them. They had no illusions of making it to the castle that day-- though Elodie suspected that Briony had only accepted this fact in her head and not in her heart-- only of starting the first of what was sure to be many visits to clean up the mess her ancestors had left behind. They needed to walk into that forest fully prepared, and they had succeeded to the best of their ability.

"The Queen and her Lady-in-Waiting-and-Professional-Daring-Adventurer, returning to the forest with nothing but their wits and their abilities to see them through the quest!" Briony sang out, slightly off-key, but broke off at the sound of the approaching hoofbeats.

Unfortunately for their sense of daring adventure, being fully prepared for the situation meant not being alone.

"Ursul is proud to serve its duty to Nova. As we always have, and have for generations," Julianna said, bringing her horse level to theirs to eye each of them steadily. Elodie had the uncomfortable feeling of a student chastised by a teacher, even though the Duchess of Ursul was serving as Lumen assistance to the Queen, just one of a handful of soldiers and scholars providing backup in their quest, instead of a mentor overseeing her charges. Briony almost certainly picked up on that feeling as well, though _being_ Briony she just rolled her eyes and spurred on her horse so the two of them could regain the lead.

"You'd think she's the one in charge!" Briony leaned half out of her saddle to stage-whisper to Elodie. Elodie would bet the entire hypothetical treasure sitting in the Old Palace that Julianna could still hear her, and the current treasury that Briony both knew it and didn't care. "I mean, you're the Queen, we're both adults, we've done this before, we're both Lumens--"

"You're not a Lumen, Briony, you don't even have a crystal yet!"

Briony brushed this point off with a wave of her hand. "I know the theory, though! And _you're_ a Lumen, and we've been practicing for forever. It's our trip. Though they are _technically_ assisting us in our heroic quest."

Briony didn't have a crystal, and she wouldn't until Julianna died (or, Briony insisted, until they discovered a secret cache of Lumen crystals stored away by some noble or other in a vault somewhere, though Elodie thought the odds of that happening were not in their favor). But that didn't mean that Briony sat around the castle all day while Elodie prepared for their return to the forest.

Briony was proving surprisingly adept at picking up the mystical arts and theory in anticipation of the day she inevitably got her crystal-- Selene had even managed to strongarm her into meditating, though only once Elodie staged an exhibition of her ability to sense the maids as they moved through the halls of the castle. Together, the two of them had managed to merge their sometimes-eclectic talents into an effective battle strategy (though one that the gardeners begged them to practice less enthusiastically, to leave at least _some_ portion of the grounds intact).

Add the sort of innovation that only two competitive girls could generate to the fact that Briony wasn't lying about her skills with a bow, and they could conquer the world together.

The people of southern Caloris had reported that the birds were big, and that wasn't an understatement. The one in front of her might have been an enormous statue of a vulture, carved from stone and left in the middle of a dense forest to collect a thick tail of moss, but for the fact that they were seen gliding through the air at dusk, and had raided prey as large as cattle from two peasants' holdings to date. They never ventured too far from the edge of the forest, were rarely seen in the daytime, and, strangely enough, didn't seem to cast a shadow, whether against the sun or a torch.

It was strange to notice that last detail of all things, considering the caw the bird made at the sight of them and the fact that its wingspan was larger than their horses, but sure enough, the shadows at her feet didn't change as it took to the air for a charge. Elodie barely had time to form a shield in front of them, a shower of sparks to deflect the creature off-course, but it reacted as well as they could have expected-- the bird shied away from the light, rearing back to avoid it with an ear-rending screech.

"Ha! Called it!" Briony said, tracking the bird steadily with her bow. It looked like their planning had paid off; the bird was afraid of the light.

Elodie gathered her magic and held it around the arrowhead, infusing it with a thin layer of light and power. Briony loosed the arrow at the exact moment that the magic around it reached its zenith, driving it with precision directly into the body of the bird. 

It was the most efficient use of their skills that they had discovered, letting Briony take over for aim so Elodie could conserve all her energy for the magical punch. It would have been optimistic in the extreme to hope that one shot would bring the creature down, but Briony found her second arrow almost faster than Elodie could charge it. With the shots from the other archers hemming the bird in, it wasn't long before the creature was sent crashing to the ground.

Briony kept her bow trained on the bird as they approached it, just as Elodie kept the magic at her fingertips; both of them had learned their lesson about underestimating the creatures in the forest. If its talons hadn't been as long as her forearm, and if its beak wasn't stained a suspicious rust color, Elodie might have felt some twinge of pity; as it was, she delivered one last burst of magic to ensure that it lay still for good.

"Why bring the rest of us along in the first place?" Julianna asked as she neared, though behind the exasperation Elodie thought she heard a note of respect in her voice. Briony must have thought so too, considering the size of her grin as she slung her arm around Elodie's shoulder in celebration.

Elodie smiled back at Julianna too, nodding at each member of their party to extend the victory to all of them. "I thank you all for your support, for today and for the future. With your bravery, we will see the end of the terror caused by these monsters. Now, let's get to work!"

"You heard the Queen!" Julianna shouted, turning her horse around to direct the others. "To the next beast!"

As the party cheered in response and rode deeper into the forest, Briony whispered conspiratorially into Elodie's ear. "I bet we bring down as many as the rest of them do combined."

Elodie grinned, her royal demeanor breaking. "Then let's get started."


End file.
